Question

A car moving at 50.0 km/h rounds a bend in the road that has a radius of 31.5 m.a. What is the centripetal force acting on the car if the mass of the car is 500 kg?Answer:

Answer 1

The centripetal force is given by:

$F=\frac{mv^2}{r}$

In this case we know the velocity, mass and radius but we need to use the proper units for the velocity, so let's make the conversion to m/s:

$50\frac{\text{ km}}{\text{h}}\cdot\frac{1000\text{ m}}{1\text{ km}}\cdot\frac{1\text{ h}}{3600\text{ s}}=13.89\frac{m}{s}$

Plugging the values given and the value of the velocity in the correct units we have that:

$\begin{gathered} F=\frac{(500)(13.89)^2}{(31.5)} \\ F=3062.41 \end{gathered}$

Therefore the centripetal force acting on the car is 3062.41 N